Juncaceae Species as Promising Sources of Phenanthrenes: Antiproliferative Compounds from Juncus maritimus Lam.

Norbert Kúsz, Dóra Stefkó, Anita Barta, Annamária Kincses, Nikoletta Szemerédi, Gabriella Spengler, Judit Hohmann, Andrea Vasas

Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) 2021 Feb 13

filter terms:

Juncaceae family represents an abundant source of phenanthrenes. In continuation of our work aiming at the isolation of biologically active compounds from Juncaceae species, Juncus maritimus Lam. was subjected to phytochemical and pharmacological investigations. The isolation process was carried out by using combined extraction and chromatographic methods. The structures of the obtained chemical compounds were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis, including HRESIMS, 1D (1H, 13C-JMOD), and 2D (1H-1H-COSY, HSQC, HMBC, NOESY) NMR spectra. Four new [maritins A-D (1-4)] and seven known phenanthrenes (5-11) were isolated from the plant, of which two (4 and 11) are phenanthrene dimers composed of effusol monomers. Maritin C (3) has an unusual 4,5-ethanophenanthrene skeleton most likely produced by biosynthetic incorporation of a vinyl group into a cyclohexadiene ring. Compounds 1-11 were tested for their antiproliferative activity on seven human tumor cell lines (HeLa, HTM-26, T-47D, A2780, A2780cis, MCF-7, KCR) and one normal cell line (MRC-5) using the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The dimeric phenanthrenes showed strong antiproliferative activity against T-47D cells with IC50 values of 9.1 and 6.2 µM, respectively.

Citation

Norbert Kúsz, Dóra Stefkó, Anita Barta, Annamária Kincses, Nikoletta Szemerédi, Gabriella Spengler, Judit Hohmann, Andrea Vasas. Juncaceae Species as Promising Sources of Phenanthrenes: Antiproliferative Compounds from Juncus maritimus Lam. Molecules (Basel, Switzerland). 2021 Feb 13;26(4)